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May 24, 2018

After Rafale splurge, a sensible Jaguar upgrade

The Indian Air Force (IAF), after being criticised for spending $9.2
billion on 36 Rafale fighter aircraft, is closing in on a far more
prudent deal — the rejuvenation of 80 ageing Jaguar fighters into highly
capable, multi-role, combat aircraft for a mere $1.5 billion or so.

This long-delayed project, which was resurrected last month, involves replacing the Jaguar’s underpowered engines.

Separately,
the uprated fighter will get state-of-the-art avionics for striking
ground targets more accurately, hitting maritime targets far out at sea,
and winning aerial dogfights with enemy fighters.

For a decade,
the Jaguar upgrade proposal has remained stalled on the issue of cost.
Honeywell was made responsible for “re-engining” the Jaguar, and the US
firm quoted an unacceptable $2.5-3 billion for taking full
responsibility for installing its new F-125IN engines in 80 Jaguars.

But
now, breaking that logjam, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has been
nominated the lead integrator, while Honeywell has stepped back to the
more restricted role of engine supplier. HAL will buy F-125IN engines
from Honeywell and install them in the Jaguars, replacing the current
Rolls-Royce Adour 811 engines.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - Hitting Air Pockets ::-
Of the 145 Jaguars that HAL built for the IAF, only 119 are currently
flying, comprising six IAF squadrons of about 20 fighters each- IAF
pilots joke that the Jaguar’s current engines are so underpowered that
the fighter only gets airborne because the earth is round- - - - - - - - - - - - -

HAL
chief, T Suvarna Raju, claims his company can do the job more easily,
and cheaply, than Honeywell, having built more than 145 Jaguars under
license over the years. “Installing the F-125IN requires 10-12
relatively minor modifications. HAL can handle this easily,” he said.

“The
earlier tender stands withdrawn. In its place, HAL will take a quote
from Honeywell for its engines and, after adding its own expenses,
submit a ‘total project cost’. Based on that figure, the defence
ministry will sanction the project. The contract will now be between the
IAF and HAL,” said Raju.

The HAL chief says there will be no
time-consuming competitive tendering, since Honeywell is the only
vendor. Rolls-Royce has declined to participate, since they do not have
an engine that meets the IAF’s specifications for the Jaguar.

Honeywell
will require 36 months for the F-125IN engines to start rolling off the
production line, but HAL wants to go ahead with engine integration,
using two engines that Honeywell had built earlier when it was to have
the lead role.

Raju says he recently travelled to Honeywell’s
facility in Phoenix, Arizona, to “ensure that we benefit from several
years of work they have already done on integrating the F-125IN onto the
Jaguar. We need to cut down on time and expense, and avoid re-inventing
the wheel,” he points out.

Besides building two F-125 engines,
Honeywell also bought a Jaguar airframe from the UK. It remains to be
seen whether the US firm will cooperate with HAL for mutual benefit, or
demand financial compensation for the work it did earlier.

The
first indicator, say defence ministry sources, will be the terms that
Honeywell demands for supplying two engines to HAL – sale, rent, lease
or gratis.

Of the 145 Jaguars that HAL built for the IAF, only
119 are currently flying, comprising six IAF squadrons of about 20
fighters each. Since 39 of these would complete their airframe lives by
2025-30, the IAF considers it uneconomical to re-engine these. That
leaves 80 Jaguars, whose service lives would be extended to 2035-40 with
new engines.

With each of those fighters requiring two engines,
and an additional maintenance reserve of 40 engines, HAL would require
200 F-125IN engines from Honeywell. Aerospace industry experts estimate a
price of $5-6 million per engine, which would place Honeywell’s bill at
a little over a billion dollars. The remaining cost would be incurred
in integrating the engines onto the fleet.

With engine supply
starting only three years from the contract date, substantial numbers of
re-engined Jaguars would probably materialise only after five years,
i.e. around 2024. IAF pilots joke that the Jaguar’s current engines are
so underpowered that the fighter only gets airborne because the earth is
round – and its curvature makes the ground drop away beneath the moving
aircraft. With the Rolls-Royce Adour 811 engines output (25 kiloNewtons
of dry thrust and 37.5 kN with afterburners) being replaced by the
F-125IN (27.7 kN of dry thrust and 43.8kN with afterburners), Jaguar
pilots believe they would have the last laugh.